A search of the the boards came up blank. I was just curious if anyone could give me the straight dope on Jim the Wonder Dog. Is this for real? SDMB lurker Oh Face sent me this link today; we are always arguing whether cats or dogs are the superior animal (cats are better). The site lists a bunch of claims, and another site even has eye witness testimony. If this was true, it would surely be a small victory in the dog/cat war. What’s the real deal?
Probably a “Clever Hans” phenomenon (http://dogtraining.co.uk/hans.htm). The dog was just really good at sensing unconscious cues from people.
I’d believe that before I’d believe that a dog could communicate in languages he’d never heard before.
Every town needs a point of interest to attract tourist dollars, and for Marshall, Jim is theirs.(Hint: Follow the money).
One of the claims is that Jim correctly picked the winner in the Kentucky Derby for seven years. Was he always picking favorites?
Here’s a way to check it out:
I am reasonable confident that the Marshall newspapers of the time are available on microfilm. Surely these predictions would have been so marvelous, that something about each were printed in the local paper prior to the running of each year’s event.
Show me the news items, or don’t waste my time.
The real deal is that there’s lots of testimony that Jim did you read. Among the observers were state legislators, who were looking for signs of fraud, and scientists at the University of Missouri. Pretty hard not to concede that what was reported did indeed occur.
As to how Jim did these things, a satisfactory explanation is elusive. Since many of his feats did not involve the knowledge, or even the presence, of his owner, you can eliminate that line of thought. In this example:
“See if you can find a car,” requested Sam, “with license number 132875.” Jim promptly crossed the street, looked up and down and placed his paws on the running board of the county tax collector’s car. The license corresponded.
…you’d have to assume the tax collector had memorized his license number to give Jim a cue, and that no one noticed Jim looking back for the cue. In this one:
*Then someone in the crowd spoke a few words in French. Van Arsdale looked puzzled since he did not understand the language. Not so, Jim. He slipped through the crowd to its outer fringe and began nudging an interested spectator. It was our Methodist minister. Van Arsdale turned to the questioner.“What did you say to Jim?” he asked. “I asked if there was a Bible in the crowd,” replied the French-speaking spectator. The pastor had a quizzical look on his face as he reached into an inside coat pocket and produced a small Testament. *
…one would have to postulate that the minister understood French, or the speaker knew there was a bible in his pocket, in order to help Jim out. Sensitivity to human cues is probably the best scientifically acceptable explanation for much of what Jim did, but when you consider all of his various achievments even that reasoning becomes strained.
Google on “Jim the wonder dog” and there’s quite a bit of fascinating stuff, regardless of how one explains it.
Can anyone prove this to be false, a hoax, somehow just a huge storytale? I can’t find any information that gives me any reason to think this is not true. I still stand by my statement…DOGS RULE OVER CATS!
It’s a fraud. Several of the claims made are impossible. It is impossible that Jim could understand a language he’d never experienced before.
My guess is that Van Arsdale had help. He would draw people’s attention to himself. They would listen to him speak and watch for any signal he gave Jim. With everybody focusing on Van Arsdale, an accomplice in the crowd could give Jim signals without being noticed.
So Van Arsdale spends the next five minutes distracting people while an accomplice tells Jim what to do.
Likely one of the students was in on the fraud and agreed to act as an accomplice. Van Arsdale would distract people, while the student signalled the dog.
So Jim didn’t spontaneously demonstrate an understanding of Greek. His being asked a question in Greek had been planned in advance.
Writing the question gave more opportunity for an accomplice to translate it and signal Jim. A spoken question might be misheard, or missed completely if the teacher whispered it in Jim’s ear. A written question, placed in plain view on the floor would give time to translate and signal. As everybody would be looking at Jim and the paper, an accomplice could read the paper without drawing any attention at all.
I’ve been to quite a few “Jim the Wonder Dog” websites, and that University of Missouri testing story is often shown, word for word. However, I have yet to find a site that states who or when the story was originally written.
I know for a fact the story was not entirely written near the time of event, because it states “Dr. A. J. Durant, head of the School of Veterinary Medicine” was on of the attendees. Either that, or the author was as big a psychic as the dog.
How was it possible the author knew in 1933 or any time prior to 1948 that Dr. Durant would be appointed as interim head of the school, when the school was not established till then??
I meant to post that as another possible explanation-the sites all get their material second or third hand without bothering to track down the original articles. Doing so would likely reveal it as a hoax.
A writer for a small town paper could very well make up a gag story about a wonder dog. Readers would understand it was a joke. But years later, somebody sees one of the articles, takes it at face value and repeats its claims. Then another writer sites that person etc.
This often happens with an old gag article on plumbing. The writer made the whole thing up. But his claim that Millard Filmore installed the first bathtub in the White House was believed and repeated until people believed it without knowing where it originated.
I don’t feel like spending a few hours searching Jim sites. But I doubt very much any corroborating evidence exists-articles by the Greek Professor, a report by the veterinarians etc. My guess is that the only texts are by one or two writers, sometimes using pseudonyms, reporting things that never happened.
Clearly, this was not a randomly picked number. Sam knew at least that such a car was parked outside, and he knew which car. So Jim could have been taking his cues from Sam. As for “no one noticed Jim looking back for the cue.”, it says right there that Jim looked up and down the street.
Probably, what was running through Jim’s mind was something like this:
Similar reasoning would probably apply to the man speaking French, or the Greek teacher. Jim was probably trained or learned on his own to take his cues from whomever asked him the question. While this does indicate a rather clever dog, and his ability to judge nonverbal cues was probably superior to that of a human, it’s still nothing miraculous.
My grandfather lived in Slater, MO twelve miles from Marshall. He saw Jim more than once and said the dog could pick out license plates on cars on the town square after seeing the number on a piece of paper. He thought the dog was the real deal. Van Arsdale sure got a lot of help from professional people with nothing to gain by fooling anyone if Jim’s story is a hoax.
Well, Jim wrote his own bio on that website–that’s got to count for something!